Scout Law

I’ve got a lot of summer camp in my life these days, and compliance on my mind, and the two keep intersecting.

There is a lot of the art of marketing in leadership, and in corporate ethics. One example is the knack of coming up with a few words to summarize and represent your company values. These are the isolated, boldfaced words that become section headings in a Code of Conduct, or paragraph titles in a Mission Statement, or that turn into an anagram in posters hung in the coffee rooms.

If you are in the market for those kind of words, you could do a lot worse than these:

So consider this tribute to the Scout Law as my greeting card from Boy Scout Camp NoBeBoSco, near Blairstown, New Jersey, where I spent the last week.

6:45 AM on Saturday, July 18, 2009, in the Onandaga campsite of Camp NoBeBoSco, near Blairstown, New Jersey

I hope you enjoy it. And remember to do your good turn daily.

(PS: OK, I know you can’t use “Reverent” in most secular companies. And maybe you would only use “Clean” if you had manufacturing. And maybe you would like to use “Obedient” but you know it’s too medieval for an American workplace. But you get the idea.)